Pages

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Indie Author News keeps a curated list of top Indie Authors and supports the rest of us trying to break out by offering Dirt. Cheap. promotional opportunities. I decided to take them up on one of their indie author promotional packages, and I'm amazed at the exposure I've gotten. In the last week I've gained about 200 followers on Twitter, met a ton of new authors, and seen my book promoted as a "Featured" book and an interview pushed out to their 87k+ Twitter followers and dubbed "amazing". Wow. The whole thing has left me a little breathless.

Monday, August 17, 2015

If you have not yet met Misty at The Book Rat, you're missing out. This powerhouse of lit fandom keeps a very active blog focused on all of her favorite books: "urban fantasy, paranormal romance, magical realism, sci-fi, and fairy tale retellings." She also hosts events dedicated to Halloween, Jane Austen, and fairy tales. If you are an author or reader of any of these, you will love this blog and the opportunity to get to know so many of the authors--The Book Rat is very generous in sharing her space with authors and introducing new works to her readers.Misty and I talked about what I should post about while I was on my vacation in Oregon, and I ran a few ideas by her, mostly because I was pretty certain she'd find my first idea--a critique of the use of the word "heroine" when discussing female heroes--too dry, too feministy, too ... dull. But no! She loved the idea, and made her own contribution to the theme.Here's a link to the post:http://www.thebookrat.com/2015/08/the-end-of-heroines-guest-post-from-ea.htmlI hope you enjoy it, and I hope you enjoy meeting The Book Rat.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Six blogs in seven days, with interviews, excerpts, reviews, and much more. I am so very grateful to the amazing team at Wisdom House Books (aka The Owl House) for putting together such a winner of a blog tour for Gwendolyn's Sword, and I am especially grateful to the fellow readers, authors, and bloggers from around the globe who gave their time and blog space to participate in the Blog Tour.

All last week was like Christmas every morning, waking up to see the new post and then sending them out to all of my social media channels. Here in one place you can visit all of the tour stops and meet the gracious hosts. If you enjoyed Gwendolyn's Sword, chances are each of these hosts have more recommendations for books you'd be interested in. I was especially delighted to see the frank feedback and the excitement over the refreshing take on women lead characters in historical fiction.

Without further ado:

Travel to the enchanting Emerald Isle to meet Irish journalist Aoife Lawlor and read her review on her blog, Fred Weasley Died Laughing: "This was an action-packed feminist adventure, ...."
Zip over down under to Book Frivolity, where hilarious blogger and historical fiction/fantasy fan Kristobelle provides an excerpt and a thorough book analysis. Her discussion of the book's play between historical fact and fantasy, quite honestly, gives helpful criticism as I write the sequel.

Join ElianaS at ItsYouandEverything for a scene analysis and a discussion of the belief systems in conflict in the book's 12th c. England setting.

Writer A. van Eeden's review is interspersed with a series of lyrical and evocative pics of medieval settings and characters. His debut novel will be coming out soon, and if his reading list is any indication of his interests, I'm pretty confident I'll want to read it!

Fellow writer TeaSippinNerdyMom strikes a Blog Tour trifecta with a thoughtful and original author interview, an excerpt, and a full author bio!

Last but not least, head over to SpontaneousOutpourings for a critical review where Skye Adams gave me some good news and some bad news--but mostly good news.

Readers, it's your turn: I want to hear from you. What have you read this summer that you just loved? What historical fiction/fantasy blogs do you follow? Who are your favorite women with swords, real or fictional?